The best kayak paddle holders

A holder and a leash solve different problems

These two products get shopped for together and they are not alternatives.

A leash is retention. It keeps the paddle attached to the boat if you drop it, which matters because a kayak blows downwind faster than you can swim after a floating paddle. It does nothing about where the paddle sits while you are not using it, and in some conditions a line in the water is itself a hazard — which is the argument on the kayak paddle leash guide.

A holder is stowage. It gives the shaft a defined place to live when your hands are on a rod, a camera or a sandwich. There is no line, nothing to tangle, and nothing trailing in current. It also does nothing if the paddle goes over the side while you are not looking.

On a fishing boat most people end up with both, and if you are buying one first, buy the holder: the paddle spends far more time parked than it does being dropped.

How we ranked these

Four criteria, weighted equally and published on how we pick:

• Grip. How positively it holds a shaft, and whether you can get the paddle in and out with one hand.
• Mounting. What the holder needs from your deck. On a second-hand hull, holes are the real cost, not the part.
• Reach. Whether it can be placed where your hand actually falls, rather than where the deck happens to be flat.
• Value. Against deck bungees, which are free and already on your boat.

Start with what your deck already has

This category is unusual: the right product is decided almost entirely by your boat, not by the holder. Look at the deck beside the seat before you shop.

A factory accessory track. The best case. A track-mounted holder slides on with no holes, and it moves later when you discover your reach is different from where you first put it. YakAttack's RotoGrip and RAILBLAZA's QuickGrip both mount this way.

Scotty mounts already fitted. Very common on used fishing kayaks, because a previous owner put a rod holder on. Scotty's own paddle clip drops into that existing mount and costs nothing in new holes.

A bare deck. Then it is two screws, a glue-on mount, or bungee. YakAttack's PadLoc is the two-screw answer and ships with the screws.

Nothing you want to drill. Then bungee, honestly. More on that below.

If you are weighing adding a track so that this and the rest of your rigging gets easier, the standards and what each one accepts are on the gear track and accessory rail roundup.

The number almost nobody publishes

A paddle holder has exactly one fit spec that matters: the shaft diameter it accepts. Shafts vary, small-diameter shafts exist for smaller hands, and a clip sized for a fat aluminum shaft will not hold a slim carbon one.

RAILBLAZA publishes 1-1/8 to 1-3/8 inches for the QuickGrip. That is the only published range in this roundup, and it is the reason that holder is here despite thinner stock than the YakAttack products.

YakAttack names compatible paddle brands for the PadLoc — Werner, Bending Branches and other common shafts — which is useful but is not a measurement. Scotty publishes neither. So if your paddle is unusual in either direction, the QuickGrip is the one you can check before buying rather than after.

Clips, rollers and what each does to a shaft

Three mechanisms, and they feel different on the water.

Snap-in clips capture the shaft between two sprung jaws. Positive, cheap, and they need a deliberate push in and a deliberate pull out. Scotty's clip is this kind, and the trade is that a two-handed shove is exactly what you do not want when a fish is on.

Rollers hold by tension against soft wheels. The shaft rolls in and rolls out, which is genuinely one-handed. YakAttack publishes soft rollers tensioned to hold the shaft on the RotoGrip. The trade is that tension is not capture: it stows a paddle, it does not restrain one.

Open cradles with a strap or a bungee are the free version, and the least secure of the three.

One detail worth paying for on a fishing boat: rubber. YakAttack publishes integrated rubber bumpers on the PadLoc to prevent noise and protect the shaft. A carbon shaft dropped into a bare plastic clip in shallow water is a sound the fish hear before you do.

Where to mount it, and how to find out

The mistake is mounting the holder where the deck is flat and convenient rather than where your hand naturally goes.

Do this before you drill anything. Sit in the boat on dry land with the paddle across your lap. Let go of it the way you would when a rod goes off. Notice where the shaft ends up and where your hand reaches without leaning. That spot — usually just behind the seat on the side you do not cast from — is where the holder belongs.

Two more constraints. It must not foul the paddle stroke, so keep it behind the seat rather than in front of it. And it must not interfere with re-entry if you capsize, because the rear deck is where you climb back on — the sequence that depends on a clear rear deck is on the paddle float roundup.

One holder or two?

One holder parks a paddle at an angle across the boat. Two holders, fitted in line on the same side, hold the shaft parallel to the hull and out of the way.

For casual use one is enough. For fishing, two is the arrangement that actually keeps the deck clear, and it is worth knowing before you price this up: YakAttack sells the RotoGrip singly at this listing and also in a two-pack, and the honest cost of a tidy setup is two units plus, possibly, a track.

On a boat where the paddle is parked for hours at a time — a pedal kayak, or an anchored fishing session — two is not a luxury. On a recreational boat where the paddle is in your hands ninety percent of the time, one is fine.

The free version, honestly

Your boat already has deck bungees, and tucking a paddle blade under them works. It is what most paddlers do, it costs nothing, and for flat-water paddling with occasional stops it is genuinely sufficient.

What bungee does badly is repetition. It is two-handed, it is slow, the cord slips off a wet shaft, and on a used boat the cord is usually perished anyway — elastic dies in UV, and ten-year-old bungee has no stretch left. Replacing it is the cheapest fix on the whole boat and it is covered on the deck rigging guide.

So the honest test is frequency. If you park the paddle twice a trip, fix your bungees and save your money. If you park it every few minutes because you are fishing, a holder pays for itself in irritation avoided within one outing.

The same fitting probably holds your drink

Worth knowing while you are choosing a mounting system: the same track, StarPort or Scotty post that takes a paddle holder also takes a drink holder, a rod holder and a light.

That is an argument for picking one system and staying in it rather than buying whatever holder comes up first for each item. The drink-holder version of this decision is on the kayak cup holder roundup.

Sit-in and sit-on-top are different decks

The advice above is written for a sit-on-top, because that is where most paddle holders end up. A sit-in changes two things.

There is less flat deck, and what there is may be over a sealed compartment. Drilling into a bulkheaded bow or stern compartment turns a dry hatch into a wet one unless every fastener is sealed properly. If you are not confident reaching inside, a glue-on mount or a track avoids the problem.

The paddle is your brace. On a sit-in, especially in any kind of chop, the paddle stays in your hands far more of the time. A holder there is for lunch stops and photographs rather than for the constant parking a fishing angler does, which is worth factoring into whether you need one at all.

On both hull types, keep the holder clear of the cockpit rim or seat back. A fitting where your hand lands during a re-entry is a fitting you will eventually catch a knuckle on.

What fails, and what that costs

These are cheap plastic parts in a harsh environment. Three failure modes are worth knowing.

UV. A holder that lives on a deck in the sun goes brittle, and the first sign is usually a cracked jaw rather than a broken base. This is the same aging that kills handles and bungee on a used boat.

The fastener, not the part. On a screw-mounted holder in soft polyethylene, the screw pulls before the plastic breaks. Use the supplied screws with large backing washers or well nuts, and bed them in sealant — every fastener through a hull is a hole.

Loss overboard. A holder is not a restraint, and a paddle parked in one can still come out in a capsize or a big wake. If you are somewhere losing the paddle would be serious, use a leash as well. That is the division of labor these two products exist for.

What else these hold

Worth knowing before you buy, because a second job changes the value.

Scotty states its clip holds an aluminum landing net as well as a paddle. RAILBLAZA publishes that the QuickGrip takes a paddle, a pole or a landing net. On a fishing deck where every fitting competes for space, a holder that also parks a net or a stakeout pole is doing two jobs from one footprint — and if the pole in question is a stakeout pole, the poles themselves are on the stakeout pole roundup.

The corollary: if you already run a crate, some of this is solved already. A milk crate with rod tubes will take a paddle blade in a pinch, which is one of the reasons the crate is the first fishing purchase on the kayak crate setup.

What we would buy

If the boat has a track, the RotoGrip. Rollers make it one-handed, a published 2.25-inch height keeps it out of your stroke, and it slides to the spot your hand actually reaches. Budget for two.

If your paddle shaft is unusually thick or thin, the QuickGrip — the only holder here that publishes the range it accepts, and it takes a pole or a net as well.

If the deck is bare and you will accept two screws, the PadLoc. Screws in the box, rubber bumpers, and no track required.

If the boat already has Scotty mounts, the Scotty clip. It is the cheapest branded option here and it uses fittings the previous owner already paid for.

And if you park the paddle twice a trip, replace your perished deck bungee and buy nothing. That is the honest answer for a lot of recreational paddlers.